How Birdwatching Saved My Life

Aer hitting rock bottom, it was taking time to mindfully appreciate the beauty of birds that set one man on the road to recovery.

- Joe Harkness

Suicide. It isn’t a dirty word. Yet in the comfortable world of wildlife watching and conservation, it hasn’t been a topic that we discuss often, preferring undergrowth to overdose. But that all changed when Chris Packham published his searingly honest memoir, Fingers in the Sparkle Jar, and in it described his own personal suicide attempt.

Chris candidly discussed his experience again in the foreword to my own book, Bird Therapy, and we were filmed for BBC Two’s Winterwatch in January this year. A taboo subject started to feel less awkward to talk about, and I made it my mission to continue sharing my own story in the hope that it may help others feel less alone.

In 2017, an astonishing 5,821 people in the UK took their own lives. I’ve been at that point myself on many occasions, but never found myself strong enough to go through with it. The closest I came was the moment I stood astride a loft hatch in 2013 with a twisted sheet tied to the beam above me and looped around my neck. I was ready to drop through the void.

I always said I’d be dead before I reached 30, with the final act controlled by me and delivered by one of my many demons… but which one? I had so many.

Every story has to have a beginning and the starting point of Bird Therapy was there – at the bottom. I simply had to break in order to rebuild, and this moment was one of the wrecking balls that began the collapse of my emotional defences. Shortly after this happened and I was subsequently talked down from the loft hatch, I went out and met one of my demons – addiction.

I’d long-struggled with drug and alcohol abuse, and alcohol had become a massively negative influence on my life. A beer festival and a day of sustained drinking culminated in an emotional implosion – the breakdown which, ironically, I needed.